Sunday 5 January 2014

Do Women Really Want To Be Empowered?

You would not believe, but I wrote this title almost a year back from today, however I could not proceed with the contents. Today, a friend of mine, re-inspired me to write this post and through that even re-awake this blog. Thanks Sarita.

Sarita interned with a mid-sized IT firm as an HR on a project 'Diversity and Inclusion', which involved studying the position and career track of women in her organization. Her findings were astonishing, even for her managers. She says:
I was shocked to see that in this 2500-employee organization about 200 employees resigned last quarter. Almost one-tenth and of which majority were women. This trend was continuing from past many years.
I did the data analysis of reasons of attrition in women. The results were on same lines of what I feared. Majority of women left jobs due to the family problems and going for a career break to start a new family.
After identifying the cause, she even tried to provide some solutions:
I wanted to set up a forum for ladies (in same organization where i took up a one month project) that could help in forming various women friendly policies, address the issues of concern for ladies, starting up helplines, mentorship programmes in that organization. I needed volunteers for driving the forum but all I got is a straight reply, "No one is interested and things will never change here".
That is it. When someone tries to do something people are so resistant to change that they prefer being oppressed rather than acting against it. However, some persuasion here could have got her to setup a forum. But would that sustain, would that help solve the problems of the women in those organization? We don't know. 

You can read her complete blog here.

The problem here is not the attrition rate of women in one organization, or women resisting to change. But the problem is, women creating boundaries for themselves. Not asking for promotions, settling for a lesser pay, refusing to travel or relocate for their jobs, and denying a late night's work in office are just some of them. They leave their jobs, their position, their country, to settle for a new guy, a new life. I've rarely seen a male compromising his career for his spouse or kid. 

These choices of women are a big blow to the organization as well as to them. Hence, if women want organizations to treat them as equally as men, they will have to treat their career as equally as men do.

I would like to leave you all here to ponder upon this quote by one of the greatest female achievers - Sheryl Sandberg.